Google Docs is cool on so many levels! By saving your documents to "the cloud," you never have to e-mail files back and forth to yourself. You can access your files anywhere you have an internet connection--at school, at home, at Starbucks, even on your iPad, iPod Touch, or smartphone.
It gets better! You can easily share documents and publish them online. The electives department is using it to give all of next year's seventh and eighth graders a chance to have a say in their elective, without the hassle of having to hand-enter every student's preferences into an Excel spreadsheet (it populates the spreadsheet automatically). As a school, we're already using it for Character Counts, tardies, and Student of the Month nominations. Science Olympiad, Drama/Dance, and Yearbook are using online Forms instead of paper applications for students signing up for next year's programs.
But wait...it gets BETTER! Teach your students how to use Google Docs (or let them teach you), and allow them to submit assignments using Google Docs. No more "my printer ran out of ink" or "I e-mailed it to you...didn't you get it?" No more crates full of papers to bring home. Students can start work at school, continue at home, collaborate with their teammates, and present back at school...all without a flash drive! Teachers can make comments using "sticky notes" in the margins and monitor progress. Team Thunder students are already using Google Docs as we move closer to a "paperless classroom." History students are completing their Medieval Levels Projects with Google Docs; science students are doing lab write-ups and projects on Google Docs.
February's "Technology in the Classroom" workshop will be completely devoted to Google Docs. It's on Wednesday, February 23, 2:15 to 3:30 p.m. in Room D-6. Curious? Check out the online tour here:
http://www.google.com/google-d-s/tour1.html See you then,
Ron
Ron Ippolito
Teacher/Yearbook Adviser, Rio Norte Junior High School
http://www.LincolnIsMyHomeboy.com School:
rippolito@hartdistrict.org - Mobile:
rippolito@gmail.com Voice/text: (661) 347-4990
